


Shade

by TwinEnigma



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe, Be Careful What You Wish For, False Memories, Human Experimentation, Identity Issues, It Gets Worse, Jenova Project, Jenova is awful, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Other, Side Effects
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-15 08:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4599801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinEnigma/pseuds/TwinEnigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A warrior makes his way to Midgar. Sick, alone and confused, he knows only that he must go to Midgar. All else is lost to him. In Midgar lies the key to his past. In Midgar his fate will be decided.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

                There is something wrong. From the moment he wakes, he is aware of it instinctively. His body, shivering with fever and soreness that goes all the way to the bone, feels alien and weak and he can’t remember his name. Trying to remember is like trying to catch motes of dust in the air: completely useless. With shaking and unsteady limbs, he rolls over and pulls himself to his feet.

                In the distance, a city pierces the skyline.   It sits in the middle of a wasteland, ugly and monstrous.

                _Midgar,_ his fevered mind supplies dully.

                A flicker of recognition stirs within him, the details lost in the haze of pain and fire burning up his mind, but he knows somehow that he needs to get there. With momentous effort, he wills his aching legs to move forward and, slowly, he staggers down the cliff, into the wasteland.

                It is a long journey and every step is agony, but he can make it, he knows he can.

                It is only thing he is sure of anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

                He avoids the patrols, stumbling quietly through the shadows beneath the Plate. The world swims nauseatingly, neon lights blurring into bright acidic smears in his fevered gaze, and he stops, resting a while. He doesn’t know why he must hide, but he knows somehow, buried deep in that part of himself that knew this was Midgar and knew what paths to take to avoid the patrols, that they cannot… no, _must not_ find him.

                Green, liquid light bathes his mind and he gags, choking and dry-heaving on the memory of drowning. His retching draws the attention of others, most wary and disgusted, and dimly he recalls that sick and homeless vagrants had a way of disappearing in this city. His fingers curl, clawing at the packed filth that they called ground here, and he gags again, his vision blurring everything into one endless wash of nauseating, liquid green.

                Someone’s hands touch his shoulder. Instinctively, he lashes out, barely able to comprehend the way his arm snaps back to knock the interloper away or the feral growl that rumbles low in his throat as he hisses, “Stay away from me!” to the shocked and terrified man.

                The world sharpens long enough for him to remember to run and, in an instant, he is scrambling away, deep into the safety of the scattered pipes and hidden paths between sectors. He ignores the shouting behind him, the calls to wait. He needs to hide. It’s not safe.

                        


	3. Chapter 3

                He wakes to the sound of artificial rain pelting against the tin sheets he’d hastily used to hide his shelter and the cold dampness of Midgar. It’s strangely soothing, though it does little to ease the hunger that gnaws at his gut or the aching fuzziness in his head. Thankfully, at least the fever seems to have abated a little.

                Crawling to the pipe entrance and cupping his hands, he gathers some of the filtered ShinRa manufactured rainwater and greedily drinks. It tastes slightly metallic and bitter, but he is so thirsty that he doesn’t mind the bad taste so much and he knows somehow that he must stay hydrated. Idly, he wishes he had access to a basic ShinRa field filter, like he’d had in SOLDIER, and he freezes, stunned by the suddenness of the memory.

                “SOLDIER?” he manages, his voice an aching, unfamiliar rasp forced over dry, cracked lips, and the word brings confusing, disjointed fragments of images and sounds. He stares at his gloved hands a moment, then at his bare arms, and slowly grabs his shirt, feeling the weight of the heavy black cloth. This is a SOLDIER uniform. The color is important: it means something.

                “SOLDIER…” he pauses, narrowing his eyes at the black cloth again, and then it clumsily tumbles from his lips, “First class.”

                Almost immediately, a wave of shattered images tinted in electric green crashes through his head and he cries out, instinctively pulling himself into a ball. It hurts badly, pain wracking every nerve in his body, and he feels almost like he’s burning alive from the inside out. Even the rain sounds like thunder to his ears. As suddenly as it came, the tide of memories then recedes and he is left shaking and exhausted, with only the vaguest sense of what he’d seen in them.

                He shivers, curling tighter into a ball, and drifts into a fitful sleep.

 


	4. Chapter 4

                It’s the noise of people searching the junk that next draws him into waking. He can hear the dogs panting, the low hissing squawks from radios and knows instinctively that the ShinRa have come for him. He thinks, perhaps, there was a time _before_ where he’d have been glad to see them, but now he doesn’t want to be anywhere near them. ShinRa had done something to him, he remembers that much – something _horrible._

                He clamps down on the urge to retch as a memory of drowning in green light comes to mind unbidden. No, he cannot go back to them.

                Quietly, he moves further back into the pipe, hiding behind the decaying garbage and discarded junk, and tries to make himself as small as possible. He stays still, resisting the urge to hold his breath as he listens to the footsteps of the infantrymen walking on top of the pipe above. Instead, he tries to focus on watching them through the many small rusted holes in the pipe. There don’t seem to be that many of them. Hopefully, the rain has washed away enough of his scent and soon they’d be gone.

                He rests his head on his arms and waits. Sometimes, they pass close enough that he can hear, but if they know his name, they don’t use it. Instead, they mention a project – the “S” project, a name that sends a shiver of dim, horrifying recognition down his spine – and that they’d know who they were looking for as soon as they saw him.

                It is only then he realizes that he doesn’t even know what he looks like.

                He wraps his head and body in rags anyway.

 


	5. Chapter 5

                It’s only when it’s absolutely quiet that he makes his move. Outside, Midgar bustles with noise and filth and he swears that the piles of junk have only gotten deeper. He doesn’t think it’s been that long since he’d last been here – maybe only four years, if he is recalling it right. He frowns, struggling to place the memory, and fails. It’s a small matter. He’s got far more pressing things to worry about.

                His stomach growls angrily and he wobbles a little on his feet, his body suddenly spiking with heat again. Dizzy, he slouches into the shadows between the refuse and lets his gaze fall upon the nearby building, where a woman is taking out a box of empty beer bottles. Beyond that, he can make out a familiar gym and the distant, lurid lights of a pleasure house.

                “Wall Market,” he mutters absently. “This is Wall Market.”

                It’s cleaner in his memories – the gym and bar were new and the alley walls were free of graffiti and posters. For the life of him, he isn’t able to remember why he was here.

                His stomach rumbles again.

                He waits until the woman disappears back into the bar before he leaves the safety of the shadows. He doesn’t want to scare her and attract any unwanted attention. No, better that he stay as far off ShinRa’s radar as possible, even if it means hiding from the locals. Him, a SOLDIER first class, hiding from a barmaid! It’s patently absurd.

                “ _Desperate times,”_ he thinks and forges ahead on shaking legs. With a little luck, he might be able to score a meal out of pity.

                He stumbles, grasping at air, and ends up face first in the dirt as his legs give out. Grimacing, he claws his way towards the wall on his hands and knees and uses it to brace himself as he gets back to his feet. It’s no small task. His body feels heavier than normal and strange, but he can’t tell if it’s because he’s so sick or not. In the dirty glass of the bar back window, the reflection of his eyes glow like tiny blue-green lanterns.

                Perhaps he has Mako poisoning. He frowns, considering. It’s certainly a valid possibility. Even for a SOLDIER, a high enough exposure could be fatal.

                Green washes across his memory, the sensation of drowning bubbling up, and he blanches, leaning heavily into the wall for support. His breaths come in large, desperate gasps as he fights to steady himself. Could that green be mako? What had ShinRa done to him? Why can’t he remember?

                His stomach lets out a loud rumble and he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding as his thoughts turn to the present and a more pressing concern. He needs to eat. It doesn’t matter if it’s something cheap and simple. He just needs food.

                On instinct, his hand drifts to the edge of his boot and he is about to stop himself when he feels the edge of several carefully hidden Gil.

                _“Why are you doing that?”_ a voice, deep and somehow familiar-feeling, asks in the back of his mind. The image of a ShinRa truck being loaded and infantrymen with guns accompanies it. There is someone else there, indistinct and blurry, a black smear with a sword he thinks he should recognize.

                And then he remembers a laugh and a voice, clear and enthusiastic, that says: _“Just in case. You never know!”_

                “A country boy is always prepared,” he murmurs, the fractured memory sitting heavy in his mind. Fragments of images and colors accompany the words. A woman’s face, wizened and smiling, hangs ponderously in a sun-bright flash of memory – his mother, perhaps?

                His stomach growls again.

                He’ll think about it after he gets something to eat.

 


	6. Chapter 6

                The bar is dark and he is grateful for it. In the dim light, no one notices the stained black SOLDIER uniform peeking out from under the rags he’s wrapped himself in. He blends in with the other slum rats and dirt-caked boozers that have wandered in from elsewhere in Wall Market – hiding in plain sight, as it were. It’s easy and no one pays him much mind. The barmaid doesn’t even look twice at him when he asks for the cheapest, readily available food they’ve got and shoves the Gil in her hands. The most attention she manages to give him is to lightly curl her lip in disgust and turn away when he practically starts shoveling his food into his mouth.

                He can’t help it. He’s _never_ been so hungry in his entire life and, even though it sucks, it’s still _food_. It doesn’t help that he can’t remember the last time he ate a real meal. For a moment, the memory of chasing something through brush and of a spit over a campfire flashes in his head, but it, too, drifts away into a vague recollection that what he’s eating now tastes only marginally better than ShinRa field rations. Small wonder then that they were hunting game to spice things up, he thinks and takes a sip of his water.   Sliding another Gil on the table, he beckons for a second helping.

                The barmaid narrows her eyes at him as she sets the plate down, but this time she does not leave. She’s studying him even as he starts into his seconds, which is more than a little unnerving, and he tries to ignore her.  “Those are some pretty eyes you got there, mister,” she says, at last.

                It takes a monumental effort not to check over his shoulder to see if anyone is watching the exchange.

                “And that’s some scar you’ve got,” she adds, drawing back. She lets out a low whistle. “I bet there’s a hell of a story there!”

                The food suddenly tastes like ash in his mouth and he lowers his fork quietly. In the back of his mind, someone is talking, telling him _it could scar_ , and then comes the dim sense of recalling that he _wanted_ it to. A face, at once familiar and strange, hangs suspended in between moments; his wrathful and anguished expression superimposed with smiles and an easygoing, almost meditative calm.

                _“We are **monsters!** ”_

                His stomach lurches as something in him, something burning and bathed in a cacophony of screams, ripples through every nerve in his whole body. Mumbling a quick excuse, he stands and shakily hurries to the restroom. The door to the restroom bangs loudly as he shoves through it and he nearly bowls over another customer, who yells at him angrily. All it takes is a glower from him and the man runs out, his face pale with terror. Some part of his mind screams that he’s making a scene and if he’d been trying to keep a low profile, he’d just gone and blew it bad but he _can’t_ think straight, not with the taste of bile and ash on the back of his tongue and the urge to retch so violently strong.

                It is almost on automatic that he reaches up to slide the deadbolt closed on the door, makes his way to the stained sink and turns on the water.   It smells faintly of the chemicals used to treat it, but it is _cold_ and rinses away the bitter taste at the back of his throat. The cold water feels even better on his face and with each time he rinses his face, he feels a little less like he’s going to be sick.

                Gripping the sides of the sink, he closes his eyes and leans forward, until his head touches the smooth surface of the dingy restroom mirror. Then, he lets out a deep breath and listens to his heartbeat settle back into normal. It is not too late for him to still salvage the situation outside. He could easily talk his way out of it. Surely, this isn’t the first time a customer’s had to run to the toilet in this dive. Slowly, he leans back, opening his eyes as he raises his head.

                In the dingy mirror, he sees himself for the first time: a haunting figure, pale and sallow with obvious fever and brightly burning mako eyes, flanked by fading and peeling SOLDIER recruitment posters. He leans in, reaching for the mirror at first, and then he reaches for his face, tracing the smooth, precise lines of a strangely shaped scar on his left cheek.  The scar is faded, but stark in the light, and he can’t recall when he’d gotten it.

                **_“Angeal!”_** the pained roar bellows up from the depths of memory and his hands clench reflexively around a sword that isn’t there before crashing down to grip the sink hard enough to crack the porcelain as his legs begin to buckle and the eyes reflected in the filthy glass burn green and cat-slit, like poisonous jade embers. At his sides, the faded, peeling posters bleed into life as the walls and ceiling ripple and smooth into the sleek efficiency of the SOLDIER training room, while he clings helplessly to the crumbling sink like a lifeline.

                Over his right shoulder, the dark haired man he’d seen before hovers and shifts between a kind of distant half-smile and a terrified rage. On the other side, a man in a crimson coat alternates between looking down his nose at him and a strange, fervent desperation. His shoulder sluggishly pours blood as the color leeches from his very being. Shattered images of them crash across his mind in washes of light and fire, smiles and rage.

                “I know you,” he murmurs and his eyes, burning green in the glass, narrow as he raises his hand. “You are…”

                His eyes flick to the right, then to the left, and he can feel his lips moving of their own accord: “Angeal and Genesis.”

                They are falling, scattering in blood and feathers as their flesh peels back in large, greying welts, and he is _burning up_ , something terrible and screaming and green lancing through his brain. In the distance, he can faintly hear a distorted voice saying, _“You were friends, right?”_

                The memory of gripping a sword, of the way the black leather of his gloves creaked against the sword grip, of monsters surging past, and that familiar, pained roar slices through everything, too perfect and at once a shattered cacophony of impressions and tiny details.

                “ _You were friends, right?”_

                The letters _Training Room no. 49_ bleed red across the wall in his mind, the lighting dull as the computer shuts down, and the door is hissing as someone leaves; someone is leaving, a black blur against the bright lights outside. Red flashes, creaking leather, and there is the crash of metal on metal, more familiar than breathing, more familiar than the dull pounding coming from the door.

                _“Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return.”_

                Those faces, twisted in fury, madness and despair, charge towards him from beyond the mirror, swords drawn, and he can’t help the cry of horror that issues from his throat as he throws himself backwards, away from the dingy mirror and back into the filthy, ill-lit excuse of a restroom. Blinking, he still turns around to assure himself that they are not really there. Only the posters, the faces faded and yellowed, remain. Between them, a third faded poster rests on the wall, hardly more than a faded breath of tint left in it. Within that face are the eyes he recognizes from the mirror, but not the scar.

                _“I want it to scar,”_ a voice, distorted and half-familiar growls in his aching, burning head.

                He turns back to the mirror, his hand drifting to the rags concealing his head, and he tugs, letting the cloth come loose. The face in the mirror looks so different from the one in the poster – older, weary and sick, the hair shorter, spikier and dull with filth. Slowly, he runs his fingers over the scar, old anger and grief stirring in his gut.

                “I didn’t want to forget,” he mutters, frowning at the vagueness of the recollection. “You were… my friends.”

                There is a strange sensation, like something has clicked into place, and then there is nothing but a steady roar that drowns out everything, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut until it stops. When it does, he can clearly hear the fists pounding on the door and the dull squawks of ShinRa patrol radios.

                A cold terror floods his body. He can’t go back. He _can’t._

                His eyes dart around the restroom in desperation.

                He has to get out of here, has to get somewhere _safe._

                And then…

                The next thing he knows, he’s nowhere near the bar. He’s standing on a pile of junk between the sectors. There is blood and concrete dust on his clothes and hands and he can smell the char on him as he tries desperately to calm down, to catch his breath. He can’t remember what happened, but he’s scared of himself and there’s some horrible, insane feeling in his gut that he _should be_ , that this isn’t the _first_ time he’s blacked out like this.

                He needs to get off the streets.

                From his vantage point, he can see a dilapidated church that rises towards the Plate above, the door ajar in silent invitation, and, like a pilgrim, he quietly accepts.

 


	7. Chapter 7

                His first impression of the church is one of both wonder and an eerie familiarity. Something in his gut screams that he _has_ been here before, though _why_ a SOLDIER of his caliber would have been here is a mystery. It is merely another crumbling building drowning in the sea of growing refuse under the Upper Plate, abandoned to its fate. And yet, the closer he gets to it, the more he realizes that he _recognizes_ it somehow. For a moment, he hesitates, his hand hovering in front of the door. He doesn’t know what he’ll find here, but somehow he knows it’s tied to his past.

                A slight push is all it takes, the door swinging fully open and, again, something burning flashes through his blood. He can _feel_ his pupils dilating and the pounding rush of blood in his veins. Then, as quickly as it had come, the staggeringly powerful sensation is gone and he is left standing in the open doorway, breathless and chilled to the bone with cold sweat.

                He knows now, more than ever, he needs shelter and rest.   Memories whisper of broken rafters and ruined back rooms that could be used for hiding. He raises his head and stares, struggling to find the elusive door to the back through eyes still blurred with fever. Instead, his eyes are drawn to a circle of light and green and it takes him a moment to realize he’s already started moving towards it.

                It’s a patch of flowers, radiant in the artificial light from above. It is an impossibility - a miracle of sorts - because he remembers that nothing grows in Midgar, but he _knows_ this scent.   His eyes wander from the packed earth and flowers splitting the floorboards to the ceiling above and the hole that yawns down at him.

                _“Defend yourself!”_ Angeal roars in his ears and, in his head, he can still feel the surprise and shock when the limit strike impacts him because he _wasn’t expecting him to go through with it._ He remembers the attack exploding in his face with a bang, and then the floor was just _gone._

                “I fell?” he murmurs, raising a hand to his head and wincing at the flickering memories of panic and weightlessness. “I fell here.”

                It’s hard to think clearly and he _knows_ he’s forgetting something, but he can’t recall what. His head aches and, for a moment, the perfume of the flowers threatens to overcome his senses.

                _“Hello?”_ a woman’s voice calls out and he winces, unable to tell if it’s memory or real.

                Then, he hears the creaking of floorboards, soft the rustle of cloth – light steps, hesitant, _real_ – and the voice as she calls out again, “Hello?”

                He turns to look at her and his eyes widen in recognition. She is older, but he knows her – she was the one who found him here, she was…   Memories rush forward in a flash of burning white and green that races through every cell in his body, stealing the breath from his lungs for the barest of moments, and then, as if some key in a lock had turned somewhere, _he remembers who he is._

                “Aerith?” he says, quietly at first, and then louder as he steps forward. “Aerith!”

                Before he knows it, he has crossed the gulf between them and is wrapping his arms around her in a hug, ever careful of his strength. In his arms, she is stiff as a board and, when he pulls back, he can see the shock and disbelief on her face. She must have thought he was dead and he can’t blame her for it, not after four years. There were times he’d almost believed he’d died, too.

                “I - I don’t understand,” she murmurs, almost to herself.

                “Aerith, it’s me,” he says, cupping one of her hands in his own. The action seems to startle her out of it a little and she looks up at his face. Her hand drifts up of its own accord, brushing past his hair as she traces the lines of his scar with her tiny hands, and her brow furrows a little as she searches his face.

                “It’s me, it’s _really_ me,” he assures her, placing one hand over her own and cupping her face with the other.   “I tried to get back soon as I got your last letter, but I was _so_ sick from the mako and some things are still a jumble… and the ShinRa - they’re looking for me everywhere! But you - you’re okay, right? I mean, you said the flowers are selling, so I guess that means the cart worked out okay and all… Ah, look at that! You’ve still got the ribbon I gave you!”

                She blinks, her face falling into a strange mix of sadness and bewilderment, and then she brings up her other hand, running it over his face as she closes her eyes. Slowly, they sink to their knees together, never once losing contact. Aerith sighs and he can feel her hands, cool and soothing, trail down his face to his neck and then slide under his arms as she pulls him into a hug. He lets himself fold into it, wrapping his arms around her, and he never wants to let go. He’s had no clue how much he’s missed her until now.

                “I thought I’d lost you,” she whispers, at long last.

                “It’s okay now, I’m not going anywhere,” he says, closing his eyes as he leans forward until his forehead rests against hers. “I’m done with ShinRa. After what they did to my friends… to _me…_ ”

                She hums, a noncommittal sound, and when he opens his eyes, she has drawn back a little and is regarding him thoughtfully. Then, she cups his face with a hand, her eyes sad: “You’re not all the way home yet.”

                A thin chuckle escapes his lips. “Yeah, my mom and dad are probably going to kill me for making them worry, but its better this way. I don’t want to put them in any danger.”

                Aerith shakes her head, smiling a little. “It really is you in there, isn’t it?”

                “Yeah,” he agrees. He knows he looks like hell. “It’s really me, Sephiroth.”

                Her smile fades and, with a concerned look, she reaches up to smooth the spiky silver hair away from his face, but her eyes are, if possible, even sadder than before. Her hand lingers on his cheek, thumb brushing over his scar, and softly, she asks, “Oh, what have they done to you?”

 


	8. Chapter 8

                “You’re looking much better today,” Aerith says, from behind him.

                They sit on his bed in what was once an old storage room; the room is small and oddly shaped, like many rooms in the old houses of this sector, and the smell of dust still lingers there, in spite of all their scrubbing and sweeping. Artificial sunlight spills through the threadbare curtains, bathing them in the strange, heatless incandescence of the Sub-Plate sectors. On the windowsill, a fresh lily clipping glows like a star in the light.

                He lets out a soft hum of contentment, one that is both half-agreement and half an indication that he’s still listening. If he thinks about it, he can almost see the faint smile on her lips and he finds himself with his eyes closed and smiling, letting himself relax totally as her hands pull the brush through his hair again and again. Her touch is gentle and she makes short work of even the most stubborn snarls. It’s fast becoming his favorite part of their routine. Why he’d never let her do this before that fateful mission is a complete mystery to him because it feels simply _divine._

                “It’s funny, though,” she pauses, raising the brush to start a new stroke. “Your hair looks so different. I’m still getting used to it.”

                He hums in agreement: it’s a lot shorter than he remembers it being before leaving for that last mission and only slightly less unruly than it had been when he was a kid. “It’ll grow back.”

                Her hand pauses mid-stroke and immediately he can’t help but wonder if he has said something wrong again. He does that a lot these days, but he can’t help it. His memories are still patchy and distorted in places and things often end up coming out all kinds of wrong. Half the time, it's like his body wants to say or do one thing and his brain another.

                Sometimes, when it gets really bad, he gets this crazy fear that they might not be his memories at all and the mere idea of it _terrifies_ him so badly he can hardly think straight for ages afterwards.

                “Aerith?” he asks quietly, opening his eyes. He dares not look up.

                “It’s nothing,” she says, a little too quickly, and continues the brush stroke. “I’m just worried, that’s all.”

                He raises his head, turning to look at her. “About what? Is this…”

                Aerith smiles, shaking her head as she raises a hand to caress his scarred left cheek, and softly murmurs: “You idiot.”

                He covers her hand with his own, threading his fingers in between hers, and stares into her eyes. “I’m _not_ going to let them take me back, I promise.”

                “I know,” she sighs, drawing back and sitting down on his bed. “I’m just… _worried_. You haven’t been well, you know…”

                She trails off suddenly, as if catching herself mid-thought, and again shakes her head. This time, she takes his hand in her own, her fingers tiny against the breadth of his.

                “I know I haven’t been myself lately,” he admits and tries not to notice the subtle way her shoulders twitch at the statement. “But you said it yourself – I’m getting better, right?”

                Aerith doesn’t answer right away: instead, she squeezes his hand first. Then, guiltily, she mumbles, “Yes, of course, you are. I’m just… I’m being selfish. I was so sure I’d lost you and I can’t… I _can’t_ …”

                She sniffs, trying bravely to hold back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, and his body is already moving of its own accord, enveloping her in an embrace that only it remembers from that time _before_ while his mind flounders helplessly, unable to place it.

                “I’m sorry,” he says and means it. “I keep making you cry. Some boyfriend I am.”

                Aerith lets out something between a laugh and a hysterical sob, pressing her face into his chest as one of her hands swats him.

                “Did I say something wrong?” he asks, his eyes wide with mortification.

                She shakes her head, sniffling, and hums in the negative. Her arms find their way around his torso and it is there they stay: tangled in each other’s embrace and yet, somehow, he still feels like they’re a million miles away from each other.

                “I love you, you know,” she says, breaking the silence. “Just… be careful, okay? You’re still _healing._ ”

                “ _That_ , the great general Sephiroth can do,” he states and firmly presses his lips to her forehead.

                A joke about being a SOLDIER lies leaden and coated with ash on the tip of his tongue, unspoken. The bitter aftertaste of ShinRa’s betrayals binds the familiar, easily fluid words to silence. Dimly, he recalls demanding Angeal about what had become of his pride as a SOLDIER and now, with the grim understanding found in his own horrific experiences, he knows that he has come to the same exact same answer: there is no pride to be had in being a SOLDIER anymore.

                And yet, from the way Aerith looks at him, it is as if she expects to hear that joke and finds its absence a reminder that he is not quite the man she’d once known anymore.

                “Besides, heroes are _always_ careful,” he manages, forcing a smile and a wink even as he tries to forget the unpleasant memories the word _hero_ brings.

                In their own way, he thinks they might be _worse_.

                “ _My_ hero,” she says, a sad, soft smile slowly dawning on her lips.

                “Always,” he replies, like the word is engraved into his very bones.

                And there, in the gentle curves of her smiling face, he can forget his worries and pains, if only for a little while.


	9. Chapter 9

                Days pass quietly in the little house under the plate. In the mornings, he watches Aerith leave to tend her flower business from his window. During the day, he tries to help her mother, Elmyra, by fixing things around the house and generally staying out of her way, as she has made it clear that she has little love of SOLDIERs. Usually, he ends up dozing off out of a combination of boredom and sheer exhaustion.

                It is the quietest his life has been since he’d left for Midgar all those years ago.

                And yet, he’s restless.

                Logically, he understands _exactly_ why he cannot leave the safety of the house: it is _not_ safe. He doesn’t believe for one moment that the ShinRa have stopped looking for him and he _knows_ they have spies all over the Sub-Plate. All he needs is someone recognizing him or flapping their lips to the wrong person and this sector will be absolutely crawling with infantry and Turks looking to get their shot at glory in taking him out – which wouldn’t be that hard, given his current situation.

                Even if he did happen to still have his sword, armor and materia, he is in _no_ physical condition to defend himself and he knows it. Recovery from the Mako poisoning has been a frustratingly slow-going process and much of his memories are still a splintered, disjointed mess. Aerith insists that he needs to rest and get some proper sleep so he can heal faster, but SOLDIERs have never exactly been heavy sleepers and, of late, he’s found it next to impossible to get to sleep and _stay_ asleep. The nightmares that plague him are so horrible that more often than not he startles himself awake, sometimes waking up the whole household in the process. In the end, he is left in a state of near constant exhaustion, stumbling around until he can’t physically deny the need to sleep anymore.

                Worse still, if he got caught, Aerith and Elmyra could get killed just for hiding him. He’s one of the company’s dirty little secrets now and he knows there’s a long list of people that ShinRa has ‘disappeared’ for knowing too much about the company’s dirty little secrets.

                Some of them, he acknowledges bitterly, were his friends.

                He is so _tired_ of losing friends to ShinRa.

                At the same time, the little house is starting to feel more and more like a suffocating cage. He desperately wants to go out, even if just for a little while, and stretch his legs. His health, though still far from perfect, has improved considerably and there is only _so much_ he can do around the house before he runs out of things to keep himself occupied. With nothing to do, the house feels even smaller and more confining than before and his desire to leave becomes alarmingly overwhelming. It is only the blinding, paralytic terror that comes at the thought of being recaptured and drowning in that awful green light that stops him cold in his tracks.

                By all that was holy, what had they done to him? He doesn’t remember ever feeling anything like this _before_. When had he become such a coward?

                He must have said it aloud because Elmyra, normally so indifferent to him, turns away from the soup she’s making and gives him an unusually compassionate look. “It’s not cowardice,” she says, firmly. “It’s different than that.”

                She pauses, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes as she searches for the right words, and he can’t help but stand there, desperately, vainly hoping she’ll name what’s wrong with him so he knows what he needs to fix.

                “My husband died, you know,” she admits, “Early in the Wutai War, before…”

                She gestures to him and he understands: _before_ SOLDIER became famous, before _him_. He’d cut his teeth on the War, but the fact is distant, almost peripheral in his mind, like it happened to someone else: the sensation is troubling, but at the moment his attention is fixed on Elymra alone.

                Silence falls, leaden and stifling, as he watches her expression slacken, mind clearly drifting to some painful long ago.

                “You’re not a coward,” she states, abruptly turning her back on him. She leans forward, a hand pressed to her face and he can hear her drawing a long, deep breath. Then, finally, she adds, “Not all injuries are visible ones.”

                “How do you heal an injury you can’t see?” he asks, raising his hands in helpless frustration.

                Elmyra looks over her shoulder at him, the damp tracks of tears still evident on her face. She gives him a thin, pained smile and shakes her head: “I wish I knew, I wish I knew.”

                The words are hardly comforting.

                That night, he again wakes screaming and choking on the memory of ash and heat. In his mind, he still sees a village consumed in flames long after the realization that he’s no longer dreaming.

                He doesn’t go back to sleep.


End file.
